16 Answers

I think that girls are really tricky people (as I am one of them, and find myself to be extremely tricky).

I like this. I like to be hooked. So that might mean being super present in the beginning, like calling once a day, for like 3 days and then completely backing off. That way, if she likes you…she’ll miss the attention and perhaps start calling you :-)

It depends on how much I like him.
I’ve had guys I thought were amazing, and I wished they’d call every day and be more pushy and persistent
And I’ve had guys I thought were ok and worth getting to know a bit, who have called every day, been pushy and persistent, and it’s been a huge turnoff.

So it’s more about reading the girl and deciding what to do? It’s hard if you don’t know her that well yet. Usually I am pursued (well..my only 2 times in a rel.) but they don’t end well, so I’m trying to change it up a bit.

ok it really depends for me personally. im trying to think about this and coming up with a bunch of different things. if i like the guy, i like him to be in contact but not too much so that its overwhelming. but like @Simone_De_Beauvoir said, it should be 50/50. its stupid for me to sit around waiting for my phone to ring or for a text or whatever, when really its 2010 and the guy does NOT HAVE to call first or text first. plus i think a lot of guys are just as insecure as women so i’m sure they’d love the first call sometime too.

on the other hand if i dont like a guy and he is pursuing me i find everything annoying and usually my dislike for him grows if he doesn’t lay off especially after i’ve told him i’m not interested.

Well, for one, I definitely don’t want to feel like I’m being “pursued”. That word makes me think about being a deer on the wrong end of a shotgun.

Call me because you want to call me, and have something to talk about. I don’t believe in being surgically attached to your telephone just because you’re dating someone. And texts are not intended to carry on conversations – they’re for saying “I’ll be there in 15 minutes, got stuck in traffic”. That’s all.

I wouldn’t want to be pursued, I’d want to be intrigued. Imagine you’re an author and you want people to keep reading your book… you hook them with a mystery on the first page so they have to keep reading to get answers. Then answer those, but bring up whole new things they want to know about. By the end of the book, the reader is so familiar with your world and your characters that they just read because they’re enjoying themselves.

The whole idea of pursuit is kind of gross, because it makes me think that I’d be reluctant or trying to avoid the person. Why would I want to be with someone who makes me feel reluctant? If you think about it, it’s a lot like “no means yes” or “good girls say no,” which are both ways of saying that women don’t know what we really want.

I met two guys at around the same time. The first was a friend’ of a friend. He called often, shared deep and serious emotions early, told me all about himself, and tried to move things quickly into a relationship. The second one was a total stranger I met in a coffeehouse. He started a quick, interesting conversation, and we planned a very casual date later. He revealed his personality to me a little at a time and kept things light and airy. This let us build a nice rapport together, so that when we finally talked about deeper stuff, it felt appropriate. The second situation was more of a give and take.

Read the book “The Selfish Gene” By Richard Dawkins. It explains in very graphic terms the reasons for male pursuit and female coy behavior and the social motives behind them. Once you understand these at the base level you can manipulate your own behavior and others reactions to achieve your goals, be it to attract a mate or avoid undesirable mates.